Eleven student-athletes on the Tewaaraton Award watch list highlight this year’s All-Atlantic Coast Conference Men’s Lacrosse Team, as announced today by the conference office. The team was determined by a vote of the league’s five head coaches.
North Carolina and Syracuse each had five student-athletes named to the All-ACC Team. Notre Dame, which went undefeated in league play (4-0) and earned the ACC regular-season title, has four members on the squad. Duke has three, followed by Virginia with one.
Jake Bailey, Jimmy Bitter, Ryan Kilpatrick, Joey Sankey and Chad Tutton represent North Carolina, while Syracuse placed Dylan Donahue, Nicky Galasso, Brandon Mullins, Kevin Rice and Ben Williams on the All-ACC Team. Notre Dame’s selections are Conor Doyle, Matt Kavanagh, Matt Landis and Sergio Perkovic.
Deemer Class, Will Haus and Mylse Jones represent Duke, and Matt Barrett is Virginia’s selection on this year’s All-ACC Team.
North Carolina’s Sankey, a senior attackman from Warminster, Pennslyvania, earned his third straight All-ACC nod, while teammates Bitter and Tutton are repeat selections from a season ago. Also earing repeat honors are Duke’s Class and Jones, Notre Dame’s Kavanagh, and Syracuse’s Mullins and Rice. Orange teammate Nicky Galasso also earns All-ACC honors for the second time in his career as he was an All-ACC selection in 2011 as a freshman at North Carolina.
Syracuse’s Donahue leads the ACC with 3.45 goals per game and ranks fifth in the nation in that category. North Carolina’s Bitter (4.93), Syracuse’s Rice and Donahue (4.73) and Duke’s Jones (4.64) rank 1-4 among conference players in points per game, and rank seventh, eighth and 11th, respectively among all NCAA Division I players.
Williams, a sophomore from Mendota Heights, Minnesota, owns the league’s top faceoff percentage (.693), a mark that ranks second in NCAA Division I, while leading the nation in ground balls per game with 10.0.
Virginia’s Barrett has been solid in the net for the Cavaliers with a 10.92 goals against average over an ACC-high 741:27 in net, and has made 172 saves this season.
The 2015 ACC Men’s Lacrosse Championship gets underway with two semifinal games Friday at PPL Park right outside Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Top-seeded Notre Dame faces No. 4 Duke at 5:30 p.m., followed by No. 2 North Carolina vs. No. 3 Syracuse at 8 p.m. Virginia will play Penn in the ACC-Penn Classic on Saturday night at 7:30, followed by Sunday’s 1 p.m. title game between Friday evening’s winners.
ESPNU will broadcast the Friday evening semifinals and Sunday’s championship game, while ESPN3 will show the ACC-Penn Classic on Saturday. The semifinals and championship games will also be available on the WatchESPN app.
Individual awards, including Offensive Player, Defensive Player, Coach and Freshman of the Year, will be voted on by the league’s head coaches following the ACC Championship.
2015 All-ACC Men’s Lacrosse Team
A – Jimmy Bitter, Sr., North Carolina *
A – Joey Sankey, Sr., North Carolina *
A – Conor Doyle, Sr., Notre Dame
A – Matt Kavanagh, Jr., Notre Dame *
A – Kevin Rice, Sr., Syracuse *
A – Dylan Donahue, Jr., Syracuse *
M – Deemer Class, Jr., Duke *
M – Myles Jones, Jr., Duke *
M – Chad Tutton, Sr., North Carolina *
M – Sergio Perkovic, So., Notre Dame *
M – Nicky Galasso, Sr., Syracuse
D – Jake Bailey, Sr., North Carolina
D – Matt Landis, Jr., Notre Dame *
D – Brandon Mullins, Jr., Syracuse *
F/O – Ben Williams, So., Syracuse *
SSM – Will Haus, Sr., Duke
LSM – Ryan Kilpatrick, Sr., North Carolina
G – Matt Barrett, So., Virginia
* 2015 Tewaaraton Award Candidates
